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In memory of the Old Man - "a small development" called Nassim Jade
- Thread starter scroobal
- Start date
hahaha...,we know u are good at acting dumb....soikee said:
now u also starting to act blind......i increase the font size for u....
Scroobal...U are viewed in the same category as JohnTan, Zeroo, etc....who need to pander to the PAP to make money....
Wah seh more powerful than the suharto and rothschild family.
I've read your view and apparently one that is just a pinhole through which you peep at your mother undressing. Now go and fuck her!
The HPL episode that sparked off a political storm in Singapore in 1996 has been buried alive by the PAP. But its ghost will continue to haunt those involved.
INTRODUCTION
It all started when the Stock Exchange of Singapore (SES) censured a publicly listed property development company called Hotel Property Ltd (HPL) for not seeking shareholders' approval for the sale of some of its condominium developments at a discount price.
Dr Lee Suan Yew, Lee Kuan Yew's younger brother, was on the board of directors of the company. He had purchased a unit in a condominium project developed by HPL called Nassim Jade.
Shareholders of HPL had been grumbling about the way business was conducted in the company especially when it came to dealings with the Lee family. Many of the shareholders were waiting to buy units at the said project. When the launch of the property never came to pass, the shareholders saw red and demanded an explanation.
The stock exchange authorities quickly announced that HPL had breached regulations. One day later, Lee Kuan Yew and his son, Lee Hsien Loong, publicly revealed that they too had bought HPL condominiums. The story made headlines and started tongues wagging. The story was then traced back to one Ong Beng Seng, a property tycoon in Singapore, and Managing Director of HPL.
Ong had developed two condominium projects at the choiciest districts of Singapore. One was the abovementioned Nassim Jade situated where opulent and expansive embassies and mansions were located around Nassim Road. The other, Scotts 28, was at the heart of Singapore's shopping and tourist district Scotts Road. Both projects consisted of condominum apartments valued at millions of dollars per unit before the property slump.
MORE RED FACES
It was also revealed that not only had Lee Kuan Yew, his brother and his son purchased these apartments, they were offered substantial discounts to boot. The apartments were due to be put on sale on the open market on 17 April 1995. Three days before the official launch, HPL conducted a "soft launch" where a select group of potential customers were invited to have first go at the apartments. This was not exactly an unheard of practice amongst property developers. The problem was that because HPL was a publicly listed company, it had shareholders to account to. Rules under the SES Manual Listing stated that approval had to be sought for transactions involving "connected persons" of the company involved and those persons' associates. The HPL did not seek the permission of its shareholders. Suan Yew, Lee's brother, was a non-executive director of the company.
At the soft launch, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, chose an apartment to buy. She was quoted a price of $3,578,260 (or $1,583 per square foot) for the apartment. This was a seven percent discount on the list price. Buyers at soft launches are usually given only a five percent discount.
Later, Kwa Geok Choo contacted her son, Hsien Loong, and told him of the Nassim Jade apartments upon which he called Aunty Pamelia Lee, wife of Uncle Suan Yew, and said that he and his wife, Ho Ching, were interested in buying the property as well. Aunty Pamelia then later came back to her nephew and offered him an apartment for $3,645,100 a discount of 12 per cent or $437,412 on the asking price. The Deputy Prime Minister accepted the offer.
This was not all. On the Scotts 28 condiminiums, similar offers and purchases were made. Lee Kuan Yew and son bought two more units and paid $2,791,500 and $2,776,400 respectively for them, each bagging a five percent discount.
All in all, Lee Kuan Yew received from HPL a total of $416,252 whilst Lee Junior got $643,185 in discounts. All the purchases amounted to more than $10 million and were carried out without mortgages and loans.
And yet, this was just the tip of the iceberg.
It was later found out that Lee Kuan Yew's entire family was in on the purchases. Daughter Lee Wei Ling, a medical doctor in a government hospital; sister Lee Kim Mon; and his two other brothers Freddy and Dennis; Kwa Kim Li, a niece of Lee; and Gloria Lee, Lee's sister in law, all bought the condos at hefty discounts. Wei Ling bought two apartments at Nassim Jade and was reported to have sold one off for a tidy profit. Again, all these transactions were carried out without the approval of the shareholders of HPL.
SHAREHOLDERS' ANGER
News was leaking out about the Lee family's purchases of the HPL condominiums and the shareholders were getting increasingly alarmed and disgruntled. When pressure was brought to bear on the management, HPL decided to belatedly seek the approval of its shareholders a full eleven months later.
The SES had no choice but to issue a statement censuring HPL for the breach of regulations. It noted that some of the discounts given to directors and their relatives in respect of the Nassim Jade units were higher than those given to non-related buyers and that the publicly listed companies have a duty to obtain the best price so as to maximise the return to its shareholders.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
In spite of this, there was no investigation nor inquiry, merely a censure for the company. Meanwhile, Lee Suan Yew quietly resigned as a director with HPL. To date, many questions remain unanswered:
1. Who made the decisions to sell the apartments at such discounts to the Lee family?
2. Who authorised Pamelia Lee to sell the units to her relatives?
3. How many more relatives or friends, apart from those readily identifiable, bought the units through such connections?
4. Why did Ong Beng Seng, owner of HPL, offer the units, and presumably the discounts, to the Lee family?
5. Why was there no enquiry into Lee Suan Yew's involvement in affair?
Posted by Donaldson Tan at 4:30 pm
Did you "see" him often, walking there to buy m&m's?
I believe that Mr. J. Ballas is Jew, because some part of the synagogue on Waterloo Street is named after him or his family.
The father of one of my NCO instructors (and Indian fella, he was a SGT then, and I was a platoon commander, then Coy 2 IC, at the then HQ 2 SIB's Lion Coy, that trained regular soldiers to be corporals) was the caretaker of that synagogue.
During my last visit to SG, I took a walk along that street.
Unfortunately GCT did not do the right thing.
Since the CPIB reports to the PM, I believe that the CPIB will have a conflict of interest.
Neither Hu nor Koh are trained in investigations.
Therefore, one other possible alternative is to appoint a Supreme Court judge to chair a team of investigators to be nominated by the Commissioner of Police,
which I am confident, will perform the necessary investigations and come to a just and fair conclusion.
If that was done, as you have indicated, billions of $$ would have been saved.
terrific post, doggie!
you guys arent trained by cesar millan and therefore have no understanding of dog psychology.
i was trained by cesar. i will rehab this doggie. if my attempts fail, will put him to sleep.
hey doggie, back to your cage.
eunuch can do it? i doubt.
Who the fuck do you think ran that mama shop, you twat?
Btw....thanks for dredging this up from the depths of the havelock canal, Scrooby....i place the blame for this solely on the shareholders....they couldve beaten the drums louder or possibly talked to the Economist/WSJ.
He would walk from his office at Caltex House to the store on the ground floor of Straits Trading Building. Howe Yoon Chong, ex- Cabinet Minister and Head of Civil Service has an office at Straits Trading Building. The building is where Town Club was and it is a members only club and any member wanting to join must be polled by the rest. Black balled and you are out and cannot be reconsidered. It was the lunch club for the Captains of Industry and mostly Ang Mos. It allowed it first female member, a banker sometime in the late 80s. Interestingly nobody heard or talked about it.
SES (now SGX) censured HPL for allowing relatives of directors to be given better discounts and failing to maximise returns for shareholders. HPL also conducted an inquiry and I think it was led by Howard Cashin (or a long standing Singapore Ang Mo) but it cleared Suan Yew and company.
According to Ah Gong's biography, he has donated all his monies to charity since 1990 and his fortune is worth less than a F15 aircraft. How did he afford to buy so many properties? JohnTan, do you know?
http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?...come-Since-1990!!-Ah-Gong-Honest-And-Generous!
http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?...come-Since-1990!!-Ah-Gong-Honest-And-Generous!
Some once said, 'power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Lest anyone forget how Suharto stole from his own charities......
Hahaha gongcheebyes see the word charity only kena con.....there's many ways to plunder monies yet
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